


Stranger before me

by Srututu_Banana



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, During Canon, Family Drama, Gen, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 05:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19289518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Srututu_Banana/pseuds/Srututu_Banana
Summary: Gina doesn't know she used to have a brother.Basically some Anders' family speculations.





	Stranger before me

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this thing was following me for a long time. I tried to recreate some specific point of view.  
> I hope someone will enjoy it.  
> The timeline may be a little bit messed up but well.

Their family cat is old, grumpy and stubborn beyond reason. Gina reaches for it nevertheless, trying to get the animal out from under the bed. The cat's eyes are like small, odd moons lurking in the shadow. The cat hisses and finally runs away but when it does so, Gina is already more interested in the weird clattering sound she has just heard.  
When she crawls under the bed her hand reaches to a place where one of floorboards moved just a little bit revealing a small crack, wide enough to put fingers in it. She thinks of possible hoards of spiders living under the floor and hidden pirates' treasures. Her heart beats so fast that she imagines the bed shaking from it. But there are no treasures under the wooden board, even the number of spiders is limited to simple, harmless zero. What she finds instead is a toy horse and a few bits. She puts the board back carefully and crawls from under the bed listening for a moment if she can hear anyone coming.  
Excitement is making her head light and her hands trembling. She is only a few years old but she is absolutely sure that good girls should not roll on the dusty floor under the bed and dig in hidden storages under the boards.  
Later, when she has some time, she cleans the toy with water and the hem of her skirt. She examines the horse in the sun. It looks so pretty when clean, it's painted blue with yellow saddle, pink nose and black eyes.  
Gina has a doll with soft hair and it would certainly use a proper charger.  
   
*  
„He doesn't like anyone,” Gina says when their cat runs away from her for the second time this day.  
Her mother is shelling peas into a bowl and doesn't even look at her when she says:  
„No, he just likes one person.”  
   
*  
   
Gina has a favourite tree. It's ugly and twisted, its branches springing from a trunk in particularly weird angles. Gina loves playing under it. When the sun shines mercilessly in the summer she can easily hide in the tree's shadow.  
She also likes this tree most because it has a story. Not every tree has one but her favourite tree must have a good story, obviously. She tells it her friends on numerous occasions.  
“You know why does it look so weird?” she asks but no “yes” can prevent her from further explanations. “Coz, there used to be a barn, you see? And one day there was a big storm. And a lightening stroke this barn, just from above, from the sky! The tree was standing too close and almost burned down to the ground.”  
No matter how enjoyable to tell, there is also a downside of this whole story, sometimes Gina can't sleep at night because the vision of a lightening putting her house on fire is too vivid in her mind.  
*  
   
“Are you the person, mum?” Gina asks one day looking at their cat, sneaking through the grass as if no one could see it.  
“What kind of person, sweetie?” her mother asks as they both are hanging freshly washed clothes on the fence in the sun to dry.  
“Who the cat likes.”  
She doesn't see her mother's face when she says:  
“Oh, no, certainly not.”  
Her voice sounds funny when she says that. Not a good kind of funny so Gina doesn't ask her mother anything more.  
*  
One day Gina's friend accuses her of lying.  
“My mum says that the lightening didn't strike your barn or anything,” the girl says with confidence of a ten years old who has just came into possession of some forbidden knowledge.  
They are sitting together on the fence, watching travelers, neighbors and spitting on the dusty road. Not necessarily all of the above at the same moment. The girls don't have to do anything for now so the world is in perfect harmony, at least for them.  
“It did,” says Gina deeply offended.  
“It did not,” her friend responds. Gina doesn't like the way the other girls smiles.  
“Huh? So what happened according to your mum?” The way this question is asked not so vaguely suggests that Gina is not, in fact, that interested what her friend's mother opinion is.  
“A mage did it,” says Gina's friend in quite, conspiratorial tone.  
Gina laughs sincerely.  
“That's stupid!” Mages don't burn barns in little villages, mages burn... castles and storm the Maker's city. Gina is pretty sure that the Maker doesn't live in their barn, although, technically He sees everything so maybe He did keep an eye on this place as well.  
“You're stupid!” says her friend, this time she is the one offended.  
They don't let this minor conversation spoil the whole day, though. They won't let the mages win over their friendship after all.  
*  
She doesn’t' ask her father if their cat likes him. She doesn't have to. The hissing she hears each time when her dad comes even close to the cat is a sufficient clue on its own.  
*  
Gina is fifteen when her mother becomes sick. She's pale, speaks in weak, hoarse voice, her skin is burning in touch. Gina is by her side days and nights. She cooks for her, she gives her some herbal medicine the father has brought from the town healer, she cools down her mother's head with a wet cloth.  
Gina's mother sleeps a lot, but her dreams make her toss on the bed and murmur restlessly.  
One name comes and goes, comes and goes. It's repeated constantly with such agony that Gina can't stand it anymore.  
“Who is that?” she asks and her mother opens her eyes widely, there is some spark of glossy recognition in them.  
“Don't you know? That's your brother,” she says.  
   
*  
   
There was someone. Someone before her. Someone who slept where she sleeps, who lived where she lives, who wandered the same roads she wanders, who had the same parents she has.  
Someone of her blood, of her bone.  
He had a small, wooden horse as a toy and he burned their family barn with magic.  
Also his cat died years ago gloriously and definitely not liking anyone except for its master till the very end.  
Then Gina remembers all those little things she has never questioned before.  
There used to be an old woman in the village, everyone knew her mind was slipping a little bit. She was constantly asking how was Gina's brother doing and shaking her head when Gina was saying that she had no brother at all.  
There was also this overly friendly baker's son who was always miraculously saving a sweet roll for her. She learnt later that he used to play with her brother when they were kids.  
There were also all those times when her mother asked Gina about her dreams. If anyone talked to her, anyone promised her something. She found it funny back then. Her dreams were full of unconscious madness she didn't even try to make sense of.  
All those little pieces, all those people, all those words, they all fell in their right places in the puzzle Gina saw for the first time so clearly. She finally realized what was the name of this little emptiness in her mind.  
That is both thrilling and amazing.  
   
*  
Someone says that there was a massacre at the Ferelden Circle of Magi. Demons, they say, blood magic, they add, all dead, they finish.  
Gina doesn't know what to make of it. There is a lot of going on these times: the death of the king, the Blight. There are more important, urgent things to worry about: what to take when they will have to run, where to escape, where to hide.  
Yet in the pale hours between day and night she finds her mind wondering.  
It's strange that she can almost feel the loss of a man she doesn't remember. She tries to make a connection between a boy who hid a wooden toy under the floor and a distant, unknown person who could bring fire with his mere touch. The road walked binds the beginning and the very end. If Gina had a map, maybe she would be able to draw a path of this methamorphosis. Maybe she would trace a place where a brother becomes a stranger. Perhaps then she would understand why she feels that way even if she was too young to remember him.  
After all, she thinks, I'm glad that mother didn't live to hear that. And I hope he did't suffer.  
Didn't suffer long, she corrects herself.  
 When Gina burns the wooden toy in the broad daylight she feels nothing at all.  
*  
The times that come afterwards are no lighter. Fire spreads through the country, the Circles rise one after another. The longer the conflict between the templars and mages lasts, the more brutal it becomes and the more Gina deeply hates both sides of it.  
Sometimes a small voice in her head says that it is better that her brother didn't manage to live up to those days, who knows how much blood on his hands he would have at this point. Gina heard one day that some mad apostate blown up the great Chantry in Kirkwall. Her mind thrills at such an act of sheer blasphemy.  
At least the dead cannot hurt and cannot suffer.  
*  
One day on the road Gina passes a stranger who reminds her of ther father. In the summer sun his hair are bright like a halo. In a quick glimpse Gina sees a walking stick, a dustied cape and another figure behind. Gina walks faster, avoiding the eye contact. Better not to bother anyone one the road when you don't know where it has begun and where does it end.  
Later that night Gina dreams of her own children vanishing in flames. She wakes up with her heart racing, her temples sweaty, her breath short. She waits for the sunlight thinking about her father, the fire her brother started and the years long silence that fell after it. She trembles hoping her blood and bones don't carry her brother's curse.  
She prays in her mind silently. Not a word spills from her lips. Fear clenches on her heart, cold and sharp.  
Because what if one day it turns out that her children will have to follow a path Gina can neither understand nor follow?  
Moveless she lays and in her mind she sees a wooden horse consumed by flame. But this time she feels it all.  
 


End file.
